Quartet starts meeting in Washington

The Quartet committee has started its meeting yesterday in Washington amid differences on the date of launching what is called "road map." Powell has announced that his country is not wishing to launch the so-called "road map" on creating a Palestinian state before the Israeli elections on January 28, 2003.

The meeting included US Secretary of State Colin Powell; Russia's FM Igor Ivanov and Denmark's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Per Stig Moller, whose country is presiding over the current rotating presidency of the European Union as well as the secretary general of the UN Kofi Annan; the EU commissioner for foreign political affairs, Chris Patten Patten and the higher representative for the EU foreign policy Javier Solana.

However, Powell has announced that his country is not wishing to launch the "road map" before the Israeli elections on January 28, 2003.